When comparing Valiant Hearts: The Great War vs Abzû, the Slant community recommends Abzû for most people. In the question“What are the best PS4 (PlayStation 4) games?” Abzû is ranked 83rd while Valiant Hearts: The Great War is ranked 91st. The most important reason people chose Abzû is:
Diving through the ocean with an array of colorful fish is very soothing. Your character can even meditate, allowing you to gaze at the surrounding aquatic life. The orchestral music further adds to the soothing feeling, while also giving most locations a sense of wonder. Nothing quite like seeing a school of fish swimming around to the soft tune of pipe instruments.
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Pros
Pro A game about war where you don't kill anyone
Valiant Hearts tells a story about war, but you're not the one spreading death and misery. Your character simply journeys through battlefields, trenches, and various other locations. You meet other characters and solve puzzles along the way. This is quite refreshing because most modern titles about war always have a gun toting player character.
Pro Simple but satisfying puzzles
The puzzles in Valiant Hearts aren't exactly the most difficult, but they'll often require a little more thought than you initially believe.
One type of the puzzles you'll have to solve is fixing a pipe system. You just have to turn sections of the pipe system until it all fits together.
Even solving something so simple is very satisfying and leaves you with a feeling of achievement.
Pro Striking artistic style
The style of Valiant Hearts appeals to most aesthetics. It's simple and clean, allowing you to spot even the tiniest details in character designs and backgrounds. You'd occasionally spot interesting things like a flute attached to a soldiers backpack. Or even spot a very detailed Cathedral in the spaces between the rubble.
The colors are very dim and blend quite well, giving you the sombre feeling of war. There are no random mashups of colors or effects like in many recent games.
Pro Soft and calming
Diving through the ocean with an array of colorful fish is very soothing. Your character can even meditate, allowing you to gaze at the surrounding aquatic life. The orchestral music further adds to the soothing feeling, while also giving most locations a sense of wonder. Nothing quite like seeing a school of fish swimming around to the soft tune of pipe instruments.
Pro Educational
Every time you encounter a new fish, you can learn what it's called. There is also the 'meditate' mode which cycles between all the different kinds of fish, naming them on screen.
Pro Absolutely striking art style
Abzû was made by Thatgamecompany, the makers of Journey and Flower. In each of their games, they emphasize taking a distinctive art style and Abzû is no exception.
It uses a very bright and vivid color palette to bring out the allure and mystique of the ocean. Lots of colorful fish and underwater plants with the sun shining down on you.
Each location looks so peaceful it makes you rethink if the ocean truly is scary. Some of those are followed by a dark area, dim lights and ominous creatures to remind you of the fear.
Cons
Con Short
Valiant Hearts takes about 6 hours to complete and there's not much to do afterwards. While the collectibles give this game some replay value, not many players will be interested in finding them.
Con Historical facts may become annoying
There are historical fact boxes that will pop up during gameplay. They are optional, but can be annoying because they disrupt the flow of the gameplay.
Con Extremely short
The first playthrough will take you only about 3 hours, which is way too short for a game of its price. You won't get much replay value out of it either, unless you want to get all the trophies.